Bayne, who turns 22 in February, insists he’s not angry heading into 2013. There’s one good reason for that—he knows he’ll run full time in the Nationwide Series.

The deeply religious Bayne has faith that this is his time to shine. It has been his faith that has kept him going the last two years and has him looking forward to 2013.

“My faith is a big part of that and I know that God has always opened the doors when I needed to walk through them,” Bayne says. “He didn’t get me this far to leave me hanging.”

Bayne insists that he’s not angry over how his career has unfolded. He hasn’t punched out a door or anything in frustration over having his career stalled after his inspiring 2011 Daytona 500 victory.

“My knuckles aren’t broken so we’re good,” Bayne said. “I don’t want people to mistake that for a (lack of) competitive nature, either. You can still rely on your faith and be competitive.

“I can promise you I want to win as bad as anybody.”

So how did he get through it?

“It just gave me a chance to put my faith in action,” Bayne said. “You say you believe stuff but then you get a chance to show it. When I was going through everything, I tried to show that.

“It wasn’t just a front. It was real. I had peace about it all. Which is crazy to me, to have peace through all that.”

Crazy would define Bayne’s 2011 and 2012 seasons.

After winning the 2011 Daytona 500 in the historic Wood Brothers No. 21 car, Bayne has had 32 Cup starts since then for the part-time team, with just two top-10 finishes—a ninth at Las Vegas and an eighth at Talladega.

That would be fine if he also had a strong Nationwide resume to complement that Daytona 500 victory. But missing five races while suffering double vision and fatigue following an insect or spider bite, he never got going in the Nationwide Series in 2011.

He had five top-fives and 14 top 10s—including a victory late in the year at Texas—but by that time had been unseated by Ricky Stenhouse Jr. as the top prospect at Roush Fenway Racing.

At the start of 2012, the organization had pledged to allow Stenhouse to defend his 2011 Nationwide title and by early summer had anointed him as the replacement for Matt Kenseth in Cup in 2013.

While Stenhouse went on to win the 2012 Nationwide title, Bayne had just six Nationwide starts in 2012. He ran the first five races and was fourth in points when the organization had to curtail that ride because of a lack of funding. He only had one more Nationwide start the rest of the year.

“It’s crazy,” Bayne said. “If you would have told me it would look like this, I wouldn’t have believed you. Winning the 500, I wouldn’t have believed that. That was crazy.

“Then if you told me I would be running part-time the next year after that, I would say you’re crazy, too. It’s been a lot. It’s been a little bit of a roller coaster. Most of all, I’ve grown through it and learned through it. I’ve learned how to manage those highs and lows.”

He now enters 2013 knowing he will run the full Nationwide season. He enters it and jokes that team general manager Robbie Reiser looks at him like: “Who are you? Go prove yourself again.”

Does he feel he has to prove himself again?

“We still have the trophy and the ring sitting there to see and that’s an awesome accomplishment,” Bayne said of winning the Daytona 500. “But it doesn’t change my drive any. I still want to make it in this sport and I want to be a top name that is contending for championships.

“This is my opportunity to do that.”

Bayne has the same crew that Stenhouse has had as crew chief Mike Kelley opted to remain in the series rather than move to Cup.

One of Stenhouse’s sponsors, Cargill, has opted to remain in the Nationwide Series with Bayne.

“We are going to use him a lot more to touch consumers than we have in the past,” said Cargill assistant vice president Fred Sousa. “Trevor has clearly built his awareness (with the public) over time.”

Bayne also expects to run the part-time Cup schedule for the Wood Brothers. He did have an average finish of 22.5 in his 16 Cup races in 2012. A year earlier, even with the Daytona win, he had an average finish of 25.8.

Those are respectable numbers for a rookie, but for a guy who won the Daytona 500, it has people talking about maybe his best days, even at such a young age, are behind him.

“They can say that and I understand that,” Bayne said. “But I’m 21 years old. I haven’t had a full-time ride in two years with a team that’s competitive. … When you’re (a part-time team) competing against Sprint Cup teams that run every single weekend and you go beat half of them, there’s something to be said for that.

“People can say that about Daytona, but we won Texas (in Nationwide) at the end of 2011. We were competitive. I think we’ve got a lot to show here.”